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Yes -- and do not buy the new toner cartridges from the manufacturer. Buy the refill kits on eBay for $15. You just drill or solder a hole in the plastic, dump out old toner, dump in new toner, then seal it. I've printed a few thousand pages for less than $15 dollars this year.

I just don't refill them. The toner for my printer is $60 and prints just over 5k pages. That's cheap enough IMO to not have to deal with refill kits and crap like that. I rarely print so 1 toner lasts me a couple years or more.

One trick that people should know is that the drum cartridges have a window on either side and when the amount of toner drops below that window the printer senses that it is out of toner. However there is still some toner left. Putting a piece of electrical tape over the window can extend the amount of pages you can print by 30-40%.

I'm very pleased with the Samsung I got for $100.00 four years ago, BUT that's not really useful as the model isn't made anymore and I wouldn't want to generalize it's performance to all current generation samsung printers.

I used to handle wholesale hardware for around 50 offices across Australia, got into the habit of only ever supply Samsungs (specifically the ML-2010 and the model that followed it) because over the course of 4 years every single model from every other manufacturer eventually died inside of its warranty period, while out of over 300 Samsungs only a single one ever came back, having failed from printing roughly 1500 pages/day while positioned in the sun against a water boiler and being subjected to such extreme heat that the top literally melted and buckled inwards.

I still have mine after 5 years and it is still going strong. Cost me roughly $50.

I was paying wholesale at that point in time, but they're still very cheap printers. I'm not sure of retail on the current equivalent model, but it would certainly be south of $100 unless things have really changed. Happy to recommend them unreservedly, in all my experience they're nigh unkillable when the standard for cheap printers is that they fail if you look at them sideways.

Samsung printers in general were absolutely awesome, but the ML-2010 and its replacement (I think it was ML-2012?) turned out to be absolute tanks despite the low price. I'm not exactly sure why it is or why they bucked the trend with regards to cheap printers being rubbish but they were particularly good value and were extremely well made. They use reasonably priced toner that was easy to get good recycled/refillled cartridges for on the cheap, as well. I didn't have experience with every printer in their line as offices simply didn't have any need for many of them. Once the standard desk printers were all replaced with 2010's I never had to replace them again which lowered the rate at which new models came in to almost zero, too, which tbh kind of limited what I saw of their basic laser product lines after that model. For networked office printers used for massive printjobs, stuff in A3/A2 and back to back printing most of them still used Xerox on account of the client's preference, but these were models way more upscale than anything most people are interested in for personal use.

If you can find an old small/medium office grade HP b&w laser printer for a good price, buy it. They'll last forever (and the rubber parts which do wear out over time can be replaced reasonably), 5-10 thousand page toner cartridges can be had for a reasonable price (or cheap if you're lucky). I bought a used HP 5 printer about 15 years ago and am still using it.

You could also print out pages at your local library. A lot of library systems allow their patrons to print out pages (b&w, color) at no cost. I usually just save what I want to print out on a usb stick as pdfs. I am in and out of the library in less than 15 minutes.

This is the default because they expect you to be using their paper, or at least a high quality paper. A large part of your print quality has to do with the type of paper you're using. Cheap recycled paper doesn't soak up as much ink as a higher bond paper so the lower setting makes sense.

If you're printing something on a higher bond (or photo) paper however you will get better looking results by using more ink.

Good answer. The GF prints thousands of mostly useless but necessary pages for her home business. Cheapest ink print on the cheapest paper is good for 99%. Once a year, turn it up to print official stuff that looks good.

Find a laser printer that can be refilled easily.. No chip replacements.. Finding the right printer is the key.. An old HP workhorse like a laser jet 4 if you have surplus sellers around.. $25 for the printer, $10 two pack refills.

Depends on quantity. If you print like me, about 20 pages a year, then going to kinkos (or in my case, the community college's print shop) and paying the 10 cents (5 cents for me) per page is a whole lot cheaper than spending $50 on a printer that I never use.

If you print higher quantity, such that it makes sense to buy, buy a cheap laser. I like the old HP Laserjet 4050 and 4m for extremely high volume (I've seen them get over a million prints, and a toner can last 25k pages)

as someone who has sold a ton of printers, cartridges, and toner, I can tell you if you use Ink Jet, you should just throw the printer out. Seriously, it's such a money trap. Samsung laser printers are probably the best mix for reliability and cost effectiveness, followed closely by HP (inb4 HP hate: we got less HPs back than any other product, and sold twice as much HP as compared to any other brand. That says something). I'd stay away from Brother (unless it's a Fax machine you're looking for.)

If we're talking text, the real frugal way to go is with a second-hand dot matrix printer.

You can buy ribbons for about $1 each, each of which lasts for a good 1,000 pages or so double-spaced (~3 million characters). The printers themselves can be had for $15-45 at thrift shops, and on ebay.